Across The Block

A Summer Garden Blooms At Bakker Auctions

PROVINCETOWN, MASS. – A white-line woodblock print by Angele Myrer (1896-1970) titled “Garden,” 1953, was the top lot at Bakker Auctions’ annual fall fine arts auction on October 28 when it sold at $4,500. Myrer studied with Karl Knaths and spent summers in Provincetown. She maintained a studio in Provincetown, and in 1950 she learned the white-line woodblock print technique from Blanche Lazzalle. Myrer’s work is included in the permanent collection of the Provincetown Art Association and Museum and numerous private collections. For information, 508-413-9758 or www.bakkerproject.com.

Gasoline Ad Survivor Tops Off Kimball M. Sterling Sale

BELVIDERE, TENN. – A 1920s-era barnside advertisement for Red Hat gasoline that was saved from demolition proved its value at Kimball M. Sterling’s Choo Choo lifetime collection auction that was conducted October 27-28. Bringing $9,920 against a $1/2,000 estimate, the sign had been covered by tin and was in immaculate condition. For information, 423-773-4073 or www.auctionauction.com.

No Taxes For $61,000 Platinum & Diamond Ring

GREENVILLE, DEL. – An October 28 jewelry auction, a collaboration between Pook & Pook and Stuart Kingston Galleries in Stuart Kingston’s new Greenville location (featuring plenty of jewelry exhibition space), treated patrons to an upscale, tax-free experience, including more than 150 lots of jewelry. The sale was led by a platinum and diamond ring with a pear-shaped central diamond weighing 4.85 carats, H color, VS 1 clarity, flanked by two pear-shaped diamonds weighing approximately .60-carat each, H-I color, SI1-SI2 clarity. From a Philadelphia estate, the ring realized $61,000. For information, www.pookandpook.com, 610-269-4040 or 302-652-7978.

ONLINE – Everything But The House, an online auction platform, reported that the top item in its sale of the Lucy Baker & Kenworth Moffett collection of New New Group Painters was a Roy Lerner acrylic painting, “Full-Size-Soul,” which sold for $5,600. Executed in 1996, the work was a wave of glittering color smeared across the canvas with wild acrylic paints in fanning motions. Lerner was a member of the New New Painters, a group of artists brought together by the first curator of Modern and contemporary art at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Dr Kenworth Moffett, in 1978. For information, 213-910-4870 or www.ebth.com.

Chinese Bamboo Brush Pot Takes $36,300 At Clars

OAKLAND, CALIF. – A Chinese bamboo/wood brush pot, alive with carved figures, finished at $36,300 at Clars October 15 fine art and antiques auction. Finely carved with a village scene and scholars enjoying a mountain landscape and featuring a wooden rim and base, the brush pot was 6-4/5 inches high. For information, 510-428-0100 or www.clars.com.

Man Ray’s Floating Lips Seal $56,250 Bid At Doyle

NEW YORK CITY – Doyle conducted a successful auction of prints and multiples on November 1. The sale offered a selection that spanned the Seventeenth through the Twenty-First Centuries. With bidding in the salesroom, on the telephones and on the Internet, the sale totaled $1,066,668, with 89 percent sold by lot and 95 percent sold by value. Two works tied for top lot of the day. Man Ray’s iconic “Les Amoureux, A L’heure de L’observatoire,” a 1970 color lithograph depicting the monumental floating lips of Lee Miller, the artist’s photography assistant and lover, achieved $56,250, far surpassing its $20/30,000 estimate. Selling for the identical price, and having the identical estimate, was a colorful, monumental handwoven tapestry after Sonia Delaunay-Terk titled “Automne.” For information, 212-427-4141 or www.doyle.com.

Dr Seuss’s First Book For Children Brings $3,900

SAN FRANCISCO – Dr Seuss’s first book for children, And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street, which appeared in 1937, the rare first issue in first issue jacket, sold for $3,900 at PBA Galleries’ November 2 auction of illustrated books and children’s literature. This first edition featured a boy on front cover of volume and dust jacket in white shorts (versus blue shorts of later issues). Its rear jacket flap with five paragraphs, ended with a mention that “Dr Seuss is already at work on 500 Hats.” For information, 415-989-2665 or www.pbagalleries.com.

Canova Marble Grouping Graces Clements Sale

HIXSON, TENN. – A Nineteenth Century Italian Carrara marble sculpture of “The Three Graces” attributed to Antonio Canova earned $96,000 at a November 5 sale of property from one of north Georgia’s most prominent industrialists by Clements. The lot included a custom exhibition verde and white marble pedestal. The figures were 54 by 32 by 16½ inches, with the pedestal at 31 by 34 by 20 inches. For more information, 423-842-5992 or www.clementsantiques.com.

Voltamp B&O Four-Piece Train Pulls Ahead At Richard Opfer

TIMONIUM, MD. – At the B&O Railroad Collection Auction conducted on November 2 by Richard Opfer Auctioneering, Inc, a Voltamp B&O train with four pieces, pulled to the top of the sale when it was purchased by a phone bidder for $15,525. The painted tin and cast iron, standard gauge with a 2100 engine, came with a tender marked B&O, a 2140 Virginia Pullman, and a 2141 New York and Washington Pullman. The 60-inch train was in very good to excellent condition, according to Richard Opfer. For information, www.opferauction.com or 410-252-5035.